


This Fine Line Between

by falter



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Band, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-15 08:41:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13027374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falter/pseuds/falter
Summary: Just Chicago being Chicago.





	This Fine Line Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaciagemini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaciagemini/gifts).



> As requested, here's an AU "where the characters didn't meet and form a band like in canon, but end up getting together...anyway." I did not manage the "...and making music together..." part, so I hope that wasn't the crucial element. <3
> 
> This story started off a lot more political (angst!), but then reality (too much angst!), so it got very meet-cute. :)
> 
> Thank you to were_duck for the excellent beta!

On Tuesday, he runs over Pete Wentz. 

It’s that kind of week.

Patrick doesn’t usually drive, is the thing. Not because he’s avoiding running over notorious ex-aldermen. Because driving — parking — in the city when you don’t have to sucks. But he’d promised his mom that he’d get the transmission looked at before the weekend, and even though he isn’t going to drive out to see her, he’s shitty at lying to her, and he knows she’s going to ask. 

At least, he’s pretty sure it’s Pete Wentz. The guy is picking himself up and untangling himself from his bicycle, and he’s wearing a helmet — thank fuck — so it’s hard to know for sure from inside the car. Where Patrick is still sitting with a death grip on the steering wheel, like an asshole. 

Shit.

He unclamps his fingers and gets out of the car and gets right up to the guy before he stops again, half-reaching out and unsure, and the guy — definitely Wentz, there’s no mistaking him — looks over at him with the kind of glare that makes Patrick wish he was dressed more like a grownup. Or at least dressed more like someone used to shouting other guys down when he’s clearly at fault, shit. 

But Wentz’s expression clears almost immediately. “Oh, hey, are you okay?”

Patrick blinks. “What?” 

“I’ve never seen anyone who actually went as white as a sheet before,” says Wentz. Who has blood dripping down one shin and who has a raw scrape of road burn that starts at his opposite shoulder then skips to his jaw. “You should probably sit down.”

That’s. This is ridiculous. “Are **you** okay? I just hit you!” He should call someone. “I should call someone. The police? Do you need an ambulance?”

“Yeah, no.” Wentz looks down at his bike again for a minute and sighs. “Pull out of traffic, man, and shut your car off, and then we can sort this shit out.” 

It only takes Patrick a minute to find someplace to park, and when he gets back, Wentz has dragged his bike over the curb and is sitting next to it. He’s pulled his helmet off and is gingerly exploring the edges of the scrape on his jaw with his fingertips. 

“Um,” Patrick starts, but Wentz looks up at him, starting to smile. Fuck, he really is a maniac like everyone says. A charming maniac. It’s kind of pissing Patrick off. Also he has no idea why he hasn’t called 911 yet, he hit a guy with his car, what the fuck. 

He’s got his phone out and unlocked before Wentz is up and in his space and grabbing it away from him. He’s surprised enough not to fight him. “What the fuck. What is your problem, asshole? I need to call 911.” 

“No. You. Don’t.” Wentz says, “Think about it. What’s that going to accomplish?”

Patrick just looks at him. He’s not sure what that even means. “It’s…what you do? When there’s a car accident?”

“That wasn’t the question, kid.” Wentz wobbles a little on his feet. He’s glassy-eyed. Patrick tries to remember how you tell if someone has a concussion. Maybe he should humor the guy. 

“It would get you to a hospital?” Patrick says, “And I think you should sit down.” 

“Yeah. Okay.” Wentz lowers himself slowly back down to the curb. He pockets Patrick’s phone, though. 

Patrick takes a deep breath and pushes back at the exasperated feeling and sits down next to him. “So what now?”

Wentz has his eyes shut. “A hospital probably is a good idea. You can drive me.” 

***

Patrick can’t fit Wentz’s bike into his car, so they wind up locking it to a sign pole. The front tire is bent nearly in half and the chain is dragging loose from the gears. At least it isn’t likely anyone will try to steal it. 

Wentz leans heavily on him all the way to the car, and hisses as Patrick lowers him into the passenger seat. 

They both stay quiet until Patrick pulls up to the emergency entrance at Swedish Covenant. 

“Thanks for the lift,” says Wentz, as he reaches across his body to open the door with his left hand. 

Fuck. “I’m coming in with you,” Patrick hears himself say, and he hits the button for the hazards so he can get Wentz inside before he finds someplace to park. 

***

Wentz’s right hand is banged up, so Patrick winds up standing at the counter with Wentz’s wallet, filling out forms. The nurses put Wentz straight into a wheelchair, and It isn’t too long before he gets called out of the waiting room. 

And Patrick still has his wallet, so he settles in to wait. 

***

He wakes up with a jolt when someone drops heavily into the chair next to him. 

It’s Wentz, of course. 

“How come you’re still here?” He says.

Patrick rolls his eyes and digs the wallet out of his pocket as an answer. 

“Oh, hey, thanks.” Wentz takes it from him. 

He’s got a cast covering one wrist, covering most of his hand and his arm almost up to his elbow and a walking boot on the opposite foot. There’s a pair of crutches leaned against the next seat, stretching out into the aisle. Wentz’s face is shiny with something over the scrapes, and he’s in a t-shirt, the bare parts of his arms covered in tattoos. They’re not a surprise; tattoos are one of the things everyone knew about Pete Wentz. Tattoos and charisma and his meteoric rise in Chicago politics, and how everyone seemed to think he would wind up mayor sooner rather than later, until shit hit the fan, and he resigned and disappeared.

Okay, that even sounded overdramatic in Patrick’s head. More like ‘stopped showing up in the _Tribune_ and started only showing up as the occasional speculation in the _Reader_.’ 

“So,” says Wentz, “thanks for the lift.” He looks down at the floor, smiling a little. “This is weird, but can I ask —“

Patrick cuts him off. “Yeah, I can drive you home.”

Wentz laughs. “No. I mean, yeah, thanks, I could use a lift, I appreciate it. But no. I’m Pete, but you know that from — “ he waves his wallet meaningfully “ — and you are?”

Ah. “I’m Patrick. Stump.” He holds out his hand, and Wentz — Pete — drops his wallet to squeeze it. It’s a little awkward, but Pete’s hand is warm and his smile is genuine.

***

Joe’s in the kitchen making grilled cheese when Patrick kicks the apartment door shut and throws his car keys on the table.

“Hey Stump, what happened to you? Thought you weren’t working tonight.”

Patrick presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids. Why is his life like this. “Can I have one of those?”

“Sure.” When Patrick opens his eyes again, Joe’s still looking at him. “What’s up, Stump? You don’t look so good.”

“I ran a guy over. I ran over a guy on a bike.” Patrick surprises himself with how flat it sounds. He drops into their single kitchen chair and puts his head down on the table. 

“Huh,” says Joe. Patrick can hear him opening the cupboard, pulling out a plate, closing the cupboard. The plate makes a soft sound as Joe sets it down next to his head.

“He’s okay. Mostly. I took him to the emergency room and drove him home.” Patrick sits up and pulls the plate over.

“Well, that’s something.” Joe’s unwrapping slices of cheese. “Are you going to want a second one?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Patrick takes a bite. Joe isn’t much of a cook, but he’s pretty good at getting grilled cheese perfectly golden and crisp. It’s pretty much the only thing Patrick’s ever seen him be truly patient with. “Oh. And it was Pete Wentz.”

“Yeah? I used to know that guy, did I ever tell you how we had a band when I was sixteen?”

“Only about a million times, Joe.” 

***

Wednesday he’s back at work, which is for the best, since he and Joe ate all the bread in the apartment. It’s a pretty normal day with all of the normal regulars making an appearance. The day takes on an easy rhythm: making sandwiches, bullshitting with the rest of the crew, cleaning the line after the rush. He’s sore through his shoulders and back from the day before — tension and falling asleep in the ER waiting room — and he worries a little about Wentz despite himself. 

When he leaves at the end of his shift, he gets off the el two stops early so he can walk past the scene of the crime. Pete’s bike is still locked up where they left it. It looks even sadder when he isn’t panicking. 

***

Thursday he looks up from the bagel he’s putting together and Pete is standing in front of him. 

He thinks he probably should have expected it. Now that Pete’s had time to think things through, he probably wants…something. An apology, at least. 

“Hi, Patrick,” Pete’s smiling. He has a really nice smile, actually. 

“Um. Hi. Did you — want to order something?” 

Pete looks up at the menu, then winks at him. Winks. “Sure. Whatever’s good. I’m in your hands.” 

Okay. “What do you eat? Meat or no?”

“Sometimes, sure. And can I get some coffee?” Pete starts pushing a credit card out of his wallet.

“Hey, no — I’ll get this,” Patrick says. “Go ahead and sit down, I’ll bring it over to you.”

Patrick has a moment of panic over what to make, then says fuck it. If Pete doesn’t like it, he can leave. He sends Jamie over with Pete’s coffee while he scrambles the eggs; Pete looks like he’s getting around okay with the crutches, but there’s no reason to make him try to carry a full cup. And all Patrick needs, really, is to be a party to giving him second-degree burns along with whatever fractures and bruises he’s getting ready to hear about.

When the sandwich is ready, he takes it over to Pete. 

“This looks amazing, what the hell is it?” Pete says. “No, wait, let me try it first.” He picks up half and says, “you made this? Just now?,” then takes a bite, letting his eyes sink closed as he chews.

Pete has got to be fucking with him. 

“Yeah. I made it, just now.” Patrick even sounds pissy to himself. He’s been working on not sounding like that in front of customers. It’s okay when he’s tending bar, but not so much with the crowd at the bagel shop. Well, they’d probably be okay with it if it didn’t put Jamie and the rest of them on edge for the whole shift. “Well, not the bialy, we finished that batch this morning.” There, that sounds a little more like a civil answer. Customer service: “How do you like it?”

Pete’s smiling up at him. “It’s amazing. Sit down and tell me all about it?”

Yeah, there’s the other shoe dropping. 

“Yeah, okay. Just let me clock out for lunch.”

***

It’s taking Pete forever to get down to brass tacks. 

He’s made Patrick tell him all about his job, how long he’s been there (six years), what he likes about it (decent pay, nice people, no shittier than any of the other jobs he’s had, or that his friends have had), and if he ever gets sick of eating there (not so far), what else he does (tends bar at a couple of places, irregularly). And he’s also told Patrick about himself. He hasn’t mentioned his past; Patrick isn’t sure if that means anything or not. He describes himself as a writer, but he doesn’t get animated until Patrick takes the bait and asks him what he writes about. 

Some of it’s stuff Patrick knows about already. Racial justice, social welfare stuff. But where Patrick is out of his depth and Pete gets really intense — hands cutting emphasis in the air between them, eyes dark and compelling — is when he starts talking about things like prison abolition and restorative justice and dismantling the whole notion of policing. 

“But what about —,“ Patrick starts to say when Jamie reaches across the table between them to pick up Pete’s empty plate and coffee cup, turning while she does it to give him a meaningful look. 

Patrick looks up at the clock. “Oh, shit, I gotta get back to work.”

Pete grabs at Patrick while he gets up. “Is it okay if I hang out for a while? Sorry I made you late.” 

Patrick shrugs, trying to not to stare at Pete’s fingers, warm against his wrist. “Sure. I mean, yeah, you’re a customer, we’re not going to rush you out.”

Something changes in Pete’s face then, but he isn’t quite sure what it means. Anyway, he’s got to get back behind the counter.

***

“Hi, mom,” Patrick says, reaching out to hug her. She gives great hugs. Why doesn’t he see her more often? 

“Patrick. You look good, baby. Did you get your car looked at?”

Oh, right. “I meant to,” Patrick says. “Things came up.”

He winds up telling her the whole thing while she does her grocery shopping and he carries the bags into the house. 

“Pete Wentz? With the dirty pictures?” She looks — interested. No, that’s weird.

“Yeah, I guess.” Patrick looks down for a minute, and thinks: well, why not. “He’s been coming by the shop.”

“Oh.” Now she really looks interested. “To see you?”

“Well, kind of. I mean, yeah.” He opens the pantry and starts stacking cans on the shelves. She’s bought three different kinds of canned tomatoes, and he has no idea why. “I ran him over and trashed his bike and he still hasn’t mentioned it. I don’t know why he keeps showing up.”

“Really,” his mom says. Like it’s not a question.

He closes the pantry door and starts folding the grocery bags. “I think it’s some kind of revenge where he makes me crazy from guilt. I don’t know. He’s kind of intense.”

“Patrick. I’m sure he just likes you.” 

Yeah, sure, thinks Patrick.

***

Pete’s there again after the lunch rush ends the next day Patrick’s at work. He’s started bringing in his laptop and setting up in the corner. They don’t really encourage that, usually — they don’t really have the tables to spare — but Pete leaves whenever things get crowded, and comes back when it dies off. 

Patrick winds up spending all of his breaks with him. It seems like the polite thing.

“Fresh coffee?”

“Can you read my mind, Patrick?” Pete looks uncharacteristically somber today, and he asks the question like he’s responding to more than just the offer of coffee. The last signs of the scrapes along his jaw have disappeared like they were never there, and he hasn’t used crutches for weeks, though he’s still wearing a boot. 

“No?” Sometimes he feels like Pete listens with his eyes, he watches Patrick so intensely when they talk, but today Pete’s mostly been looking down at the table. 

Pete’s mouth twists, a sardonic half-smile. “Good. I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to listen to this shit.”

Patrick isn’t sure what to say to that, so he takes Pete’s coffee mug to dump out the cold coffee and fill it with fresh. 

When he gets back to the table, Pete actually does look up at him. “Sorry. Just in a mood today.”

“It’s fine, my mom says I was born in a bad mood,” Patrick says.

Pete laughs at that. “I don’t believe it.”

“You calling my mom a liar, Wentz?” Patrick grins at him, and Pete — relaxes. Smiles. 

“Never.” 

***

The next day, Pete’s back to normal, typing up a storm and leafing through a legal pad packed dense with his notes. Patrick isn’t entirely sure he even notices that there’s anyone else in the place, even when Patrick is sitting across from him eating lunch. 

His head comes up at 4, though, and he calls out to Patrick where he’s wiping down the counters and marking new dates on the stuff in the reach-in. 

“You busy when you’re done here?”

It’s been a long day, and Patrick’s feeling more than a little annoyed by the way Pete’s been ignoring everyone. But. If Pete needs something, he should probably help him out.

Patrick drops the towels into the bleach water and says, “What have you got in mind?”

***

Pete has his bike in mind. It doesn’t look like less a disaster, but they unlock it and Patrick carries it up and down stairs and on and off trains until they’re at a bike shop where the guy knows Pete, and curses him out, colorfully, when he sees what they’ve brought him. 

The guy isn’t that big, but he’s all muscle, and if Patrick thinks sometimes that Pete looks intense, it was only because he didn’t have this guy to compare him to. 

“…whatever, you love a challenge, and you love me,” Pete’s saying. “Now pretend to be nice and meet Patrick.”

The guy says “I **am** nice, Pete. You’re just a menace.” And sighs dramatically before he turns toward Patrick and looks him up and down. 

Patrick feels uncomfortably like he’s being judged. He resists the urge to squirm, and puts out his hand. “Hi. Patrick Stump.”

“I gathered,” says the guy. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Andy, good to finally meet you.”

The fuck.

***

They’re back on the el before Patrick gets his shit together enough to say it. It feels a little easier sitting side-by-side, where he can look out the window instead of at Pete. 

“We should talk about it.”

He can see Pete turn toward him in the reflection in the glass. “Yeah, we should.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’m really sorry. I’m glad you’re getting better, and I’m really sorry about your bike and your wrist and your leg and —,“ he waves his hand in a sort of all-encompassing way. “ — all of it.”

“Okay,” says Pete. “Hang on. Why? I mean, thanks for the sympathy I guess, but what brought this on?”

He really is a menace, what the fuck. He turns to look straight at Pete. “I hit you with my car? Isn’t that enough of a reason to apologize?” What planet is he from, anyway?

Pete’s eyes have gone wide. “Wow.” He frowns a little. “You. Hit me. With your car?”

“Pete —,“ Patrick starts.

“No, shut up, I’m taking this in.” Pete is still looking at him. His expression is odd. Half…offended, maybe? And half amused. “I hit you. I mean, I should know. There was some prick in a truck, he clipped me, I swerved, ran into you, and then you managed to stop and **not** roll over me and turn me into mush on the road.”

Patrick thinks about it. Pete had come out of nowhere that day. 

“And then you took me to the hospital. And drove me home. And fed me!” 

Huh.

“Shit, was that all because you felt guilty?” Now Pete’s expression might be moving toward all offended. 

“No?,” tries Patrick. 

“Okay, good.” Pete still looks annoyed.

“Then why have you been hanging around?” Patrick knows as soon as it comes out of his mouth that this is the wrong thing to say. “Hang on, pretend I didn’t say that, I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah, you are.” Pete turns and stares straight ahead, but his expression is thawing. 

Patrick takes a deep breath, and reaches out to fold his fingers around Pete’s. 

“So. You got other plans tonight?”

Pete smiles, and Patrick leans in to plant a kiss right at the corner, where it begins.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over_ , because I think I'm hilarious.
> 
> Patrick works at Chicago Bagel Authority on Armitage. Hit them up if you get the chance, they make some tasty foods, and they really are good people.


End file.
